t-Blogs

Meta

A few reports have trickled in recently that some buy our shirts unaware of the story behind each design. Although this is not a problem per se, we pride ourselves on the literary angle behind each design and thought it a shame that some of you may have been missing the best part of your tee.

So we decided to revisit the neckprint template (again) this batch, elevating the name of the shirt and the book quote ‘above the foldâ€™ so-to-speak so that you simply canâ€™t miss it. Have a look at the newest designs dropping next week to see what we mean.

We spent Sunday shooting the 2 new designs weâ€™re calling Batch.05. Theyâ€™re currently being shipped off to the digital elves to work some magic, but in the meantime we thought you might be interested in the story behind each. Have a read, leave a comment, and if youâ€™re in the UK grab one in time for the fat-manâ€™s big day later this month.

We were recently excited to be published in a new book called Tees: The Art of the T-Shirt. Itâ€™s 336 pages of cutting edge t-shirty goodness, and was put together by design studio Maki out of The Netherlands.

OK so Iâ€™ve been too lazy to post this before now, but check it out. It was partly what inspired our Strange Aeons design.

Known in cryptozoologist circles as ‘the bloopâ€™, it was recorded by the U.S. National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, around 50Â°S 100Â°W in the Pacific Ocean, in 1997. Source unknown. Itâ€™s kinda creepy and something to think about the next time you go into deep water.

If youâ€™re a H.P. Lovecraft fan, and you were a fan of Strange Aeons, then stay tuned for our next couple of tees…

Big favour to ask - we wanna be the Tee of the Day over on our favourite tee design blog-thing, emptees. Weâ€™re on the front page already, but thereâ€™s some stiff competition and we need some serious help!

So please go over there and ‘heartâ€™ our Strange Aeons design and help us make our mommas proud!

Weâ€™re thrilled to finally drop Batch.04 / Obscurity, just in time for summer. As always, if youâ€™ve got any feedback whatsoever weâ€™d love to hear from you. Email us or hit us up on twitter, @the_affair.

Strange Aeons (left) is based on H.P Lovecraftâ€™s very particular form of cosmic-horror in The Call of Cthulu.

Whilst We (right) comes courtesy of our insatiable fascination with dystopic fiction, this time via Zamyatinâ€™s novel of the same name, widely agreed to be the inspiration for Orwellâ€™s 1984.

Even though the world is falling apart at the economic seams and inflation is officially falling, the unfortunate reality for us is that costs are rising. Both American Apparel and our screen-printer have increased their prices by around 10% this year.

In the two years weâ€™ve been making tees, weâ€™ve always been considerably cheaper than the average high-street tee, both in the UK and in Australia. Weâ€™ve also never once increased our prices even though our costs have been steadily increasing.

For example, last year we added inside neck prints which represented a 27% rise in production costs. We chose not to pass this on because the print is a vehicle to deliver the story behind each design, and as such is an integral part of what weâ€™re about as a brand.

Anyway we debated long and hard here at the-affair HQ as to how this affects us, and whether or not to pass on these increases. And of course there are pros and cons either way that are pretty obvious. In the end, it boiled down to the fact that like any other business, our future depends on being profitable today.

So weâ€™ve decided to raise our prices by Â£2 (8%) on all new shirts bringing them to Â£27 RRP. All old stock remains at Â£25 until sold out.

Those of you following us on Twitter got a blow-by-blow account of the Batch.04 photoshoot that took place last Sunday, including some rare never before seen production/process shots that we twitpicâ€™d at the time. Follow us and find out more.

For everyone else, hereâ€™s what a teaser trailer in the t-shirt industry looks like :)

Now if we had all the money in the world the marketing budget of H&M, the-affair website v2.0 would probably look a bit like this - of course on black not off-white, and without the abstract red shapes and weird particle effects.

As you can see from the Perfect Foolsâ€™ case study, theyâ€™ve taken our core thought and added about a gazillion Euros to the production budget - and voila! - a pretty cool evolution of the idea behind our site.

Apart from the RED camera and greenscreen (cheating!), check out what kind of a studio setup all those Euros get you. For those following us on twitter, youâ€™ll note that our setup looks pretty much exactly the same :-p

All in all a damn fine effort, the only thing Iâ€™m slightly gutted about is that there is no credit to the-affair for the (strategic) inspiration.

The sunâ€™s coming out more regularly this side of the pond (letâ€™s hope it lasts) and weâ€™re gearing up to drop a load of fresh new designs in time for summer proper. As a result weâ€™ve decided to try a little experiment via twitter to help clear out the stock-room.

All you have to do is follow us @the_affair and weâ€™ll hit you back with the 40% off sale link. Dead simple.

And while weâ€™re at it, just a quick shout out to all the twitterers who took it upon themselves to spread the good word - @purplesime, @kleonhard, @mmcneive, @Alexome, @nickad, @outsidejane - very very much appreciated!

Stalks and Cranes aside, we thought it would be an interesting exercise to see where you - our customers - actually come from.

Unsurprisingly, the great majority of you are in the UK (47%) and USA (19%). Interestingly, the rest of you are to be found in Australia (9%), Sweden (6%), Germany (5%) and Canada (3%). With the remaining 11% scattered across the great expanse in between…

No need to fear though, the only chance youâ€™ll meet someone else at the same party wearing one of our shirts is if itâ€™s either Dave or myself!

Experience the blood, the sweat and the beers as we start our t-shirt brand, the-affair. We're sure to make mistakes, learn harsh lessons and celebrate (small) victories. Follow the tears, the tantrums and the triumphs via our RSS feed. And if you've got any feedback on this tender coming of age story, write to us - service [at] the-affair [dot] com. the-affair / blog is proudly powered by WordPress.